The Rock cut a pretty terrible promo, but there's just no way WWE doesn't cut some of the legs out from under Punk in the next 20 days. Punk can stand out there for 10 minutes every night before Rock comes out and tell me that I am a piece of garbage, but everything he says to The Rock makes perfect sense while Rock just kind of baby talks. It was even better that Punk squashed all of John Cena's gripes right out of the gate.

So, Rock was terrible, but Punk just totally outclassed him in every way tonight. Either The Rock just doesn't care or never saw this coming. It's not like Punk hit him with any below the belt stuff, but you can't use your serious voice for two sentences before going back to rhyming and catchphrases right after you got called out on it, can you?

... and I called Ziggler Spaghetti Head about 25 seconds before Cole read someone's tweet.

The Rock cut a pretty terrible promo, but there's just no way WWE doesn't cut some of the legs out from under Punk in the next 20 days. Punk can stand out there for 10 minutes every night before Rock comes out and tell me that I am a piece of garbage, but everything he says to The Rock makes perfect sense while Rock just kind of baby talks. It was even better that Punk squashed all of John Cena's gripes right out of the gate.

So, Rock was terrible, but Punk just totally outclassed him in every way tonight. Either The Rock just doesn't care or never saw this coming. It's not like Punk hit him with any below the belt stuff, but you can't use your serious voice for two sentences before going back to rhyming and catchphrases right after you got called out on it, can you?

... and I called Ziggler Spaghetti Head about 25 seconds before Cole read someone's tweet.

(edited by BigDaddyLoco on 7.1.13 2334)

Only thing I think Punk missed on -- and perhaps it's still to come -- is turning the "there ya go, they're like puppets" around and calling The Rock a puppet, too, for saying all the catchphrases the audience wants.

And by the way, how awesome would a no-smiles stable of Punk, Tyson Kidd, Daniel Bryan, and Broadus Clay be?

Originally posted by BigDaddyLocoThis is what happens when you aren't around to start every thread.

Since you asked.

It's the first Raw of 2013 and it's so nice to see this company do many things right...while simultaneously doing a whole lot of things wrong.

We may as well start with the beginning, where the show starts with...John Cena. Because of course it starts with John Cena. Cena panders to the crowd and notes that The Rock is here, but is quickly interrupted by Dolph Ziggler, AJ, and Big E Langston. Dolph says the people will leave remembering him, while AJ makes some innuendos...leading to Cena parading around like an obnoxious jackass, starting THE FREAKIN' WAVE over AJ making a dick joke. Goddamn him. Big E suddenly takes the mic and this somehow leads to Dolph taking on Cena right now!

So here's an impromptu Cena/Dolph match and it's a DAMN good way to start the year. Dolph has a whole lot of interference on his side, as Big E and AJ both take shots at Cena. The ref ejects both Big E and AJ, leaving it one-on-one. This leads to Cena hitting The Usual, but the AA is countered with the Zig Zag...for 2! Dolph tries for a top-rope crossbody, but YOU CAN'T TOP-ROPE CROSSBODY JOHN CENA! Attitude Adjustment doesn't hit, as Dolph lands on his feet and immediately counters with the superkick...for 2! Dolph grabs the Sleeper Hold and Cena fights his way up, leading to a ref bump. Here's Big E Langston again and he nails the Big Ending on Cena! Dolph covers and the ref recovers...and IT GETS 2! And Cena quickly finishes with the Attitude Adjustment at about 17 minutes. So that's all of Dolph's finishers killed and Big E's finisher killed right out of the gate, just so John Cena can Rise Above Hate for the millionth time. Welcome to 2013, just like every other year with John Cena. Blow me. Great match, but that result can suck it.

What else happened? Hmm...well, Eve faced Kaitlyn yet again. Eve eventually takes her belt and exits through the crowd, giving Kaitlyn the countout win. This feud MUST continue! God, WHY???

This was a VERY bad night for 3MB. Orton beat Slater and then laid out Mahal and McIntyre post-match. Later in the night, Sheamus beat Mahal, while single-handedly taking out Slater and McIntyre. For Christ's sakes, I don't get this! Why did they bother to give these guys a gimmick change and put them together if they're just going to be the same inept jobbers? Why do they even bother with them if they're just going to treat them like jokes? Like always!

Speaking of guys they just shouldn't bother with anymore, let's go to Kofi Kingston. He faced Big Show in a non-title match and if you blinked, you missed it, as Show beat him in less than 30 seconds. Did Kofi piss in someone's coffee or something? What the hell was the point of this? This reeked of some BS political game meant to send some kind of message. Honestly, this match really pissed me off.

Let's focus on something that didn't piss me off. How about CM Punk and Ryback in TLC? Ryback just absolutely shines in these garbage brawls and they need to find a way to keep giving him these types of matches to hide his obvious deficiencies. Punk looked just fine out there and the knee looks to be alright. Finishing sequence started with Punk going for the running knee/bulldog combo, but Ryback countered it halfway and chucked Punk through a table on the outside! That looked to be it, as Ryback climbed the ladder, but the lights went out! Time for some SHIELD JUSTICE~! The lights come back up to reveal Ryback trading blows with Rollins and Ambrose atop the ladder. Ryback gets the better of the exchange until he's pulled down by Reigns. Ryback fights them all off and chucks them each out. He tries to climb again, but the Shield overwhelm him again and take him to the outside. They then hit a TRIPLE POWERBOMB THROUGH A TABLE ON TOP OF THE STEEL STEPS!!! Ryback's a total corpse and Punk can take his sweet time, making about a 90-second trek up the ladder. The victory is purely academic. Very good TV match and it's more Shield awesomeness!

And we end on a great note with CM Punk delivering a fantastic pipe bomb promo, railing on the fans for being sheep and that he's overcome everything in spite of all of them. The Rock then comes out for rebuttal. And all of it is EPIC and I can't do it justice. The night ends with Rock nailing Punk with the Rock Bottom to pay him back for the GTS last time he was on the show. Fan-freakin'-tastic! Hunt down this promo! ALL of it!

There's some stuff to be excited about here, but with the exception of the Shield, it all involves the exact same faces. Everyone else hit the glass ceiling that Punk was talking about in his promo. A lot to be excited about, but a whole lot more to be depressed about, too.

Although Dr. Shelby is coming back to give Kane and Daniel Bryan their four-month evaluation next week. And that should make Johnny O very happy!

Until next time! Take us home, JR!

@cmpunk & @therock closing segment on #RAW was a fantastic conclusion to the broadcast for @wwe. Big money promo by both. Felt old school.

"Raw 2023" was that Marvel Comics series set in an alternate, alternate dystopian future, right? Good issue setting up CyberPunk vs. a muscle alien at the Virtual Reality Royal Rumble.

Originally posted by It's FalseThis was a VERY bad night for 3MB. Orton beat Slater and then laid out Mahal and McIntyre post-match. Later in the night, Sheamus beat Mahal, while single-handedly taking out Slater and McIntyre. For Christ's sakes, I don't get this! Why did they bother to give these guys a gimmick change and put them together if they're just going to be the same inept jobbers?

Calm down, mate! The point is Sheamus and Randy Orton, Rumble rivals and Wrestlemania opponents, are trying to one-up each other.

Did Kofi piss in someone's coffee or something? What the hell was the point of this? This reeked of some BS political game meant to send some kind of message. Honestly, this match really pissed me off.

Calm down, mate! They booked a main event world title match, a long Punk promo, and a long Rock promo all for one hour. They ran long so they cut their short match down to very short.

Well, I've been missing wrestling since about when The Ryback started to catch on with the crowds (which is only partially a cause of my hiatus), and during a football game commercial break I caught Kane and Bryan doing "Duck Season-Wabbit Season". Then I came back later in the middle of Punk's promo to see The Rock return again.

Didn't seem like either of them were getting all that much reaction from the crowd, considering. I wonder if all the live crowd smarks that cheered Rock against Cena are divided for Rock against Punk (and all the Cena rooters are sitting on their hands).

Originally posted by JustinShapiroThis isn't Cena/Rock oneupsmanship competition. They collaborated on a promo where one guy tore down the people big time and the other guy stood up for them.

That's true, but it was a major miscalculation to have Rock go back to fictional butt tattoos after being reamed out for tired-ass catchphrases. "Time's up"---Rock Bottom would have been a better ending. I hope they learned that the Rock/Cena onesupmanship quasi-shoots were overused and eventually became absurd last year, and often got way way too inside, especially since for all the blows Cena landed in those promos he still had to have known the entire time he was jobbing. It was such a weird dynamic.

Originally posted by Hogan's My DadI hope they learned that the Rock/Cena onesupmanship quasi-shoots were overused and eventually became absurd last year, and often got way way too inside, especially since for all the blows Cena landed in those promos he still had to have known the entire time he was jobbing. It was such a weird dynamic.

The dynamic didn't feel weird in retrospect until Cena came out the night after Wrestlemania, shrugged his shoulders, and just started cracking terrible jokes again like nothing happened. For how important Cena made the match seem leading up to it, the next night, he just didn't care anymore. And that's more jarring than anything else.

Why was Maddox lobbying to be the official for a match that doesn't require a ref to make a three count? What was he doing to do, wave it off if Ryback grabbed the briefcase?

"It breaks your heart. It is designed to break your heart. The game begins in the spring, when everything else begins again, and it blossoms in the summer, filling the afternoons and evenings, and then as soon as the chill rains come, it stops and leaves you to face the fall alone." --- Bart Giamatti, on baseball

Most of the show was pretty much "just there" for me. I however found a few gems that have hooked me in.

The first is that Caitlyn(sp?) has some moves under her belt. I don't care much about her story with Eve but I noticed that she has some skills. She is still a bit green on tv though. The biggest problem I have with her are her facial expressions. I don't have the literary capacity to explain it well enough. It's just that she seems to be smiling a lot in the ring when she shouldn't be. Maybe it's just facial features? To me it seems she might benefit from more time with an acting coach. Either way I like what I saw tonight from her regarding her moves. There is some potential there.

3MB - I really enjoyed their heel antics tonight. Not sure why. Maybe it's the vodka or maybe it's that I finally get their purpose.

Ending promo's

I quit watching (but still read recaps) after the whole Jerry/Punk heart attack thing. Not because I was offended but more because I just needed a break from the stories that were being told (On the plus side i fell in love with the Infamous franchise on ps3 during this time, yea platinum trophies!....so not related to this).

Any how, Punk was spoon feeding me everything I needed for WWE nourishment. Then I felt guilty about being a sheep. Punk has "It", most of us know this. Tonight though was special for me in a Worlds Collide kind of way.

Punk is the revolution of this business that may or may not happen. It was so great to see what the WWE is with Punk against what the Attitude Era was. Glass ceiling to old vintage Attitude Era. All coming to the pivotal point of what Punk stated in his "Pipe Bomb" promo.

We will do what we have been trained to do.

Loved every minute of the last 30 or so minutes. Maybe its the Vodka or maybe I just bought into the Attitude Era vs Now much more than Cena's now. Kinda like what HMD said about Rocks first run with Cena. This time I think I might be much more interested.

Originally posted by It's FalseSo that's all of Dolph's finishers killed and Big E's finisher killed right out of the gate, just so John Cena can Rise Above Hate for the millionth time. Welcome to 2013, just like every other year with John Cena. Blow me.

Holy Lord was that bad. Cena went Undertaker on Ziggler. I complained recently (perhaps always) that Ziggler is lost in this angle. It's really AJ vs. Cena. Once she thinks Ziggler is ineffective against Cena, she'll replace him. Big E is right there, but even HIS finisher didn't keep Cena down last night.

They booked it in just the right way for Ziggler to steal a win, but Cena won clean. Ziggler has nothing to gain by continuing to fight Cena. So he's treading water. Again.

I liked Punk Rock. Liked Punk's zinger a lot. Loved his continuing use of "kick your ass." He didn't play the scared weasel heel as he's done with Ryback. He stood up to The Great One and came off pretty great himself.

Originally posted by Matt TrackerThey booked it in just the right way for Ziggler to steal a win, but Cena won clean. Ziggler has nothing to gain by continuing to fight Cena. So he's treading water. Again.

I see your point, but I'm pretty sure the point of this (great) match was to blow off the Cena/Ziggler feud, at least for the time being, so that Cena can start concentrating on the Rock. Unless they do something incredibly dumb, they should maintain the obvious booking of Cena winning the Rumble and Rock winning the belt, which means that Ziggler needs to be occupied elsewhere. My only problem with the Cena/Ziggler match was Cena's lack of selling at the very end, when he popped up and hit that gigantic AA for the win and immediately started celebrating like nothing had happened to him before that. Other than that, I thought the match was incredible and a real showcase for both guys.

Originally posted by Tenken347I see your point, but I'm pretty sure the point of this (great) match was to blow off the Cena/Ziggler feud, at least for the time being, so that Cena can start concentrating on the Rock.

That leaves 20 days for Cena to fight/beat Big E and wipe his hands of the AJ stable, if you're right. Then he'd have two months to hype Rock/Cena II, which leaves him without a weekly feud to tide him over.

If this Ziggler loss leads to a SD title win at Rumble, I'm OK with that. He can't go any further on RAW after the Cena loss and with Punk playing top heel or Rock as RAW champ.

That opening segment was pretty terrible up until the pure, unrestrained joy that Big E. Langston had when he was finally allowed to talk. He had neither changed his facial expression nor moved much in any appearances to that point - even when murdering Cena - up to that point, then he just explodes with "Ohhhhhh I got the mic now!!!!!" and books Ziggler into a match. Cracked me up, especially Ziggler, off mic, noticing the same thing and cracking "What, now you talk?!"

Any chance that Kofi/Show thing might be setting the table for a Kofi heel turn to balance out the karma on Face Del Rio? I would have no logical problems with Kofi knocking that ref out next week for basically leaving Kofi defenseless for no good reason.

Speaking of heel/face karma, the Barrett/Steamboat confrontation made me wonder if Steamboat's kid is due up any time soon. If so, there's a part of me that wants him to debut as the most evil heel ever, a polar opposite of Steamboat, and that the Dragon has been trying to keep him out of WWE because he doesn't want to unleash his cruel, heartless spawn on The Business. Also, Evil Steamboat Jr. would wrestle as "Richard Blood".

Ryback/Punk was every bit as terrifying and entertaining as it could be. Ziggler's rubberman/immortality aside, I don't think anybody on the roster does a better job of selling me that he's getting legit hurt than Punk does, and so he excels at car crashes like that. The suplex onto the ladder, the toss onto the ladder that warped it and Punk getting dumped onto that table were all brutal. And Ryback continues to do nice work taking beatings from The Shield that makes them look dangerous without making him look weak - they just overpower and outnumber him.

Ideal booking for the next Money In The Bank: Ryback is in one of them as the ultimate human wrecking ball, accidentally destroys all the ladders and wins by just killing everyone and climbing up a pile of their bodies.

Punk/Rock was every bit the first round I wanted out of them. Punk sagged a little when they made him wait too long to cut to commercial, but everything before and after that was pretty masterful, especially hitting the "I'd be champ for 30 years if I only had to work Bruno's schedule" bullet point.

Like others, I was hoping that after Punk did his last salvo and Rock got face-to-face and serious that he wouldn't go back to the goofy stuff again - especially because it was great when Serious Rock showed up against Cena (until Cena blew it off). But they still have a few weeks to go, so I'm hoping the Rock Bottom at the end is what sets Punk off to really kill off Goofy Rock. The flashes we got of the Rock who takes Punk seriously were too good to not get more of that and less scrotum talk, and Punk/Rock at the Rumble is one of those matches that I really don't feel confident predicting, which is incredibly rare these days.

And there's a core idea here that Punk, way more than Cena (since Cena was already arguably more successful than Rock or Hogan), has to view Rock as the ultimate test of whether any of the "I'm better than you" stuff he says will stick (if all those victories over Cena never "count", then beating the guy who beat Cena is his trump card), while Rock has really never faced "a guy like" Punk before, who has a single-minded determination to blow up the Mount Rushmore of Wrestling rather than be on it. That felt more like the first promo in a Wrestlemania build than a Rumble build, and I can't complain about that.

Originally posted by Dr UnlikelyPunk/Rock was every bit the first round I wanted out of them. Punk sagged a little when they made him wait too long to cut to commercial, but everything before and after that was pretty masterful, especially hitting the "I'd be champ for 30 years if I only had to work Bruno's schedule" bullet point.

I actually thought this was one of his weaker points. I'm just a chump on the interweb and I know Punk has a grueling schedule but could he do 300+ days a year? Twice on either Friday, Saturday, or Sunday? Doing a show in Denver, then having to catch a plane to Miami, then another to LA all in one weekend? Using the rock-solid rings they had even up until the late 90s? Plus appearances? And maintain no vice?

Then again, maybe that was his entire point. Still, I thought there were a lot of "Senator, you're no Jack Kennedy"-opportunities missed by The Rock.

I do think Punk is a great heel, primarily because he's a self-righteous hipster who's smart but nowhere near as smart as he thinks he is in or outside the ring. Basically, he's every nerdgasmingly angsty internet rant personified—or at the very least, Reddit personified—and that's what makes me want to see him get demolished. But again, there's something that's just disingenuous about his delivery, because where would he be without that hardcore fan base which makes up the majority of the audience now and thinks exactly like him?

Then again, maybe that was The Rock's entire point.

Honestly, the perfect Punk rival isn't a Rock- or Cena-type but rather someone exactly like him who throws everything he's so indignantly butthurt about back in his face in the same memetic manner.

Yeah, no. Rock was pretty much spot on about Punk's revolution belly flopping. I wanted that revolution to come, but WWE has no faith in anyone that isn't from the Attitude Era or named Cena. I also would like to remind everyone Rock had the same schedule Punk has now and faced better foes. I mean way better. I thought it was a great promo from both mean to start the feud and I look forward to more of it.

The Wee Baby Sheamus.Twitter: @realjoecarfley its a bit more toned down there. A bit.

I hardly think Langston's finisher is "killed right out of the gate" considering it took a full 23 seconds between him hitting the move on Cena & the ref starting his 3 count, Cena kicked out at 2.9, and another 18 seconds passed before Cena was able to get to his feet.

Goddamn - Paul "No Gimmicks Needed (remember that t-shirt?)" Wight is A LOT taller than 6'6". I'M 6'6" and he is AT LEAST 4 or 5 inches taller than me. The Man is a beast - even if he IS a waste of talent.